Maggie Holmes Flourish, it's just beautiful!
Hi Magpies, Rachel here and I choose to kick off March with Maggie Holmes, Flourish collection! Now I must admit, when I first saw this collection online, I wasn’t that fussed over it. I thought it was a bit samey, the colours were dull and I didn’t think I needed it. Well, I will confess, I was wrong! As always with a Maggie Holmes collection, I have ended up loving it. I always do. I love that they’re samey because then they all co-ordinate with each other and you can mix them together beautifully. I thought the colours weren’t me but now I’ve used it, I love them! So, if you’re a Maggie Holmes lover, you will love this collection I’m sure. Heck, everyone will probably love this collection. There’s enough colours in it that you can create all sorts of different looks, you can go pretty or graphic, it’s so versatile. So yes, you need this collection in your life!
For my first LO I decided to layer up some of the Botanical Die Cut Ephemera around my photo. I tend to not use die cuts a lot, I think I hoard them and think ‘I’ll keep this for special’ so I’ve been trying to make myself use things lately. I mean seriously, if I love them and I run out, I can buy another pack right? And there will be another collection along in 6 months and I can buy more then too. So I try and use stuff now and layering up the die cuts is a great way to do that. I often do it with tags in ephemera packs too, a quick and simple LO is to layer them across the page with your photo.
So it’s just Botanical Ephemera here and I’ve layered them over each other and then put some on foam pads for dimension. Then I popped in a few of the Embossed Puffy Stickers too. I did a bit of a border across the bottom with some striped paper and washi tape and then dotted across with Dandelion Yellow and Navy Blue, Nuvo Crystal Dots.
Speaking of simple LO’s using tags across a page and here’s one I did earlier! I used tags from the Die Cuts Ephemera pack and just 3 of them across the page around my photo. I added a border to my page with one of the papers from the 12×12 Paper Pad and then did another border of Nuvo Jewel Dots using Limoncello, Key Lime and Rosewater. I used the rose gold vellum frame from the Die Cuts Ephemera pack around my photo. Then I used the awesome Embroidered Bird Patch, a butterfly from the Standout Layered Embellishments pack and the bird sticker comes from the 6×12″ Accent Stickers sheet and I popped it on some foam pads for dimension.
When I saw the lovely Anne Paper I knew I had to use it as the background to a LO. It’s not like me to use a whole sheet of patterned paper as a background very often but I loved this paper so much, I had to! This paper is not in the 12×12″ Paper Pad so if you want it and are buying the pad, remember to add it separately by the sheet. Again, I layered up the Botanical Die Cut Ephemera florals and put some on foam pads for dimension. My lovely word title is from the Die Cut Ephemera pack and the little letter stickers saying day are from the Cardstock Stickers pack. I also used some of the 12×12″ Chipboard Stickers as well. The past 2 months I worked with the amazing Good Vibes collection and one of my favourite things from the collection was the Pom Pom Frames, I loved them so much, I’ve been making my own, which I did here! I also cut a border from black cardstock and put dots of Dandelion Yellow Nuvo Drops around it.
I wanted to go for a more graphic look for one LO, to show that you don’t always have to do floral, frou-frou LO’s with a Maggie Holmes collection. So I came up with this. I did a border with the Poppy Paper and then for something different, I drew a line around before I did my usual border of Nuvo Crystal Drops. I picked a paper from the 6×8″ Paper Pad to go with my photo and that made the simple design of this page. One sheet of 6×8″ paper! I embellished with various things, the chipboard deer and houses are from the 12×12″ Chipboard Stickers sheet. The yellow butterfly and swan banner are from the Standout Layered Embellishments pack and the fab quail is from the Embossed Puffy Stickers pack. I used Maggie Holmes Gold Stickers for my title and these are from a collection a few years ago but as with all Maggie Holmes collections, they go together!
My last LO was one I did for a challenge on a forum set by Jane Bradbury. Jane did a template for us all to follow and this is what I came up with. So I have shared this one online already but I thought I’d add it here as well because I used Flourish for it and I wanted to show that Maggie Holmes isn’t always all about the pink. I used papers from the 12×12″ Paper Pad and a strip of black & white stripes as well. The floral paper is from the 6×8″ Paper Pad. I’ve used an embellishment from the Standouts pack and a tassel from the Tiny Tassels Pack. My title is from Amy Tangerine, Sunshine & Good Times, the awesome Ombre Phrase Thickers which are such lush colours and also an epoxy so they’re tough. I love those! And then I used the darling Mini Foam Alpha Thickers from the Paige Evans, Pick Me Up collection, they are navy and white and a definitely must have in your stash. I also dotted around some of the Puffy Stickers from that collection too.
So that’s what I came up with using the Maggie Holmes Flourish collection. In fact, I love this collection so much, I’m going to do my April blog post with it too! So you can look forward to some more Flourish inspiration on April 1st! I will see you then Magpies. Have a great March!